Google Search

February 2009

Un-Copyright Notice

It's FREE!

Description: Please note. Anything you find on my blog is yours for the taking. Please use, share and make money from anything I have created and posted here excluding anything refering to Heal My Hands because that's how I make my living. Now mind you, this only applies to MY work, craft and cooking related. Patterns, sources and information credited to others still belongs to them and you would have to ask their permission as usual. But otherwise - what's mine is yours. I won't sue you - I promise. There's just too much of that going on already.

Very Cool Stuff

January 09, 2009

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

So we were at a Thanksgiving dinner at our neighbor's house on New Years eve. Yes, I know, this in itself could be considered odd, particularly since she stopped by to invite us just that morning. The poor thing was involved in a gall bladder purge during the Thanksgiving holiday and was not able to prepare nor partake in, the traditional feast. She had been feeling very sorry for herself and decided, on the spur of the moment, to replicate the event for New Years eve. We never pass up an invitation to a feast, so off we went, across the street and up the hill, sort of like over the river and through the woods, except without the river and the woods.

Mikhala had cooked up a storm and we joined a neighbor from down the hill at her groaning table. It was all absolutely delicious and I ate entirely too much turkey and stuffing and gravy and homemade cranberry compote and would have eaten more if I wasn't too embarrassed to pass my plate for 4ths. It was lovely.

After dinner, we ate chocolate tofu mousse, chatted about sporting accidents we had endured, the neighbors who weren't in attendance, and our New Years Resolutions. The revelations started to my left and proceeded around the table until it was my turn. I hesitated, debating whether to reveal my resolution to this table of not family nor psychiatric professionals. I could lie, and fit myself in with either the "no resolutions" or the "practical resolutions" camps, but I didn't have the nerve or the imagination. So finally, after hemming and hawing, I told them.

I resolve, in 2009, to learn the lyrics to Istanbul (Not Constantinople), and to learn how to sing it on key, note for note.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Mikhala gave me a long look, and finally managed to say "Wow, Claudia, that's deep." I know she was teasing, but it stung nonetheless. I felt I had to justify myself, which led to an explanation for my peculiar choice. I started by telling everyone that I had had that song in my head as an earworm for the last month, and that I had never learned all the words, and that I would alternately sing it and hum the parts I didn't know, which if possible, could be even more irritiating to my companions that to have to hear me sing it all the way through. I had decided to put an end to this ridiculousness and just learn the damn song.

This didn't evoke a single sympathetic look. They all just stared at me, finally nodding in seriously fake sympathy. Mikhala surreptitiously removed all the knives from the table. And I just sat there. Humming Istanbul (Not Constantinople), quietly, to myself.

In case you are wondering, the cover is by They Might Be Giants, and if you wish to have this song for your very own earworm, click here.

And if you want to learn it with me and sing along:

Istanbul was ConstantinopleNow it's Istanbul, not ConstantinopleBeen a long time gone, ConstantinopleNow it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in ConstantinopleLives in Istanbul, not ConstantinopleSo if you've a date in ConstantinopleShe'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New AmsterdamWhy they changed it I can't sayPeople just liked it better that way

So take me back to ConstantinopleNo, you can't go back to ConstantinopleBeen a long time gone, ConstantinopleWhy did Constantinople get the works?That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul (Istanbul)Istanbul (Istanbul)

Even old New York was once New AmsterdamWhy they changed it I can't sayPeople just liked it better that way

Istanbul was ConstantinopleNow it's Istanbul, not ConstantinopleBeen a long time gone, ConstantinopleWhy did Constantinople get the works?That's nobody's business but the Turks

So take me back to ConstantinopleNo, you can't go back to ConstantinopleBeen a long time gone, ConstantinopleWhy did Constantinople get the works?That's nobody's business but the Turks

Comments

I just found your blog by googling fabric collage, but I have to say, I love that song, so you have my support. I know most of it from TMBG, but I have no idea what the original even sounds like. Have fun!

Claudia, I've been searching for two hours to the lyrics of quite a different song (or poem)that my father used to sing about Constantinople! It contains the lyrics: "a "c" and an "i" spell constantini, and an ople in the pople spells constantinople.
My father died in 2001 at 83 yrs and neither my sisters, brothers or I can remember anymore than that.

Good for you, Claudia! The world is too full of earnest and deadly serious New Year's resolutions (most of which never get kept). I resolve to learn the words to Istanbul (Not Constantinople) with you. You can never know too many silly songs. In fact, I'm quite proud of the repertoire I learned back in my Girl Scout days.